Use QNAP RAID Expansion Enclosure to Expand Storage Capacity White Paper Rev 1.0 January 7, 2014
DISCLAIMER In no event shall the liability of QNAP Systems, Inc. (QNAP) exceed the price paid for the product from direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential software, or its documentation. QNAP makes no warranty or representation, expressed, implied, or statutory, with respect to its products or the contents or use of this documentation and all accompanying software, and specifically disclaims its quality, performance, merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. QNAP reserves the right to revise or update its products, software, or documentation without obligation to notify any individual or entity. Note: Back up your system periodically to avoid any potential data loss. QNAP disclaims any responsibility of all sorts of data loss or recovery. Should you return any components of the RAID expansion enclosure package for refund or maintenance, make sure they are carefully packed for shipping. Any form of damages due to improper packaging will not be compensated.
Table of Content Overview... 4 Before You Start... 4 Understand QNAP Flexible Volume... 4 Install and Configure... 6 Install QNAP RAID Expansion Enclosure... 6 Create a new storage pool on RAID Expansion Enclosure... 8 Expand storage pool capacity online... 9 Expand volume capacity online... 12 Summary... 13 Reference... 14 Technical Support... 15
Overview The QNAP RAID Expansion Enclosure is used to expand capacity of QNAP NAS. Multiple RAID Expansion Enclosures can be daisy chained to provide hundreds of Terabytes of raw capacity. This how-to guide will take you through the hardware installation and software configuration process. Before You Start 1. QNAP RAID expansion enclosures can ONLY be used with compatible QNAP Turbo NAS. 2. Install the hard drives in sequential order following the tray number. 3. Always turn on the RAID expansion enclosures before turning on the attached QNAP Turbo NAS. 4. Always shut down the QNAP Turbo NAS before turning off the RAID expansion enclosures. 5. Visit QNAP web site for supported NAS models. Understand QNAP Flexible Volume The QNAP Flexible Volume Architecture consists of the following four layers: Disk Management, Storage Pool, Volume and Shared Folders, as shown below:
RAID Group Grouping individual physical drives together by setting RAID to form one bigger drive. Storage pool Multiple RAID Groups can be aggregated as a storage pool. Volume Space used for shared folders and iscsi LUN to store data. Simple Volume / RAID Volume Flexible Volume Also known as legacy volume before FW 3.8 that uses RAID group to present a disk volume. The volume cannot be extended. Use storage pool space to create a specific disk volume. The volume can be extent on demand.
Install and Configure Install QNAP RAID Expansion Enclosure Cabling the NAS and RAID expansion enclosure An example of connecting a QNAP NAS to four RAID expansion enclosures is shown below. Note: please refer to the QNAP RAID Expansion Enclosure hardware manual for more detailed instructions. 1 Connect the QNAP NAS to the QNAP RAID Expansion Enclosure: If two (or above) RAID expansion enclosures are configured, connect the two storage expansion ports on the NAS to two RAID expansions for maximized performance. 2 Connect the QNAP NAS to the QNAP RAID Expansion Enclosure: Connect the storage expansion port* on the QNAP NAS to the IN ( ) port of a RAID expansion using the external Mini SAS cable (SFF-8088).
(*Note: An optional storage expansion card may be required on the QNAP NAS.) 3 Connect the QNAP RAID Expansion Enclosure to another RAID Expansion Enclosure: Connect a Mini SAS cable (SFF-8088) from the OUT ( ) port of the RAID expansion to the IN ( ) port of another RAID expansion. Caution: Do not connect an OUT port ( ) to another OUT port ( ) or an IN port ( ) to another IN port ( ). Check if the RAID Expansion Enclosure is installed successfully 1. Login to the Turbo NAS with administrator privileges 2. Go to Storage Manager > Storage > Disks and select REXP# to check if the enclosures and disks are already installed.
Create a new storage pool on RAID Expansion Enclosure Except as storage expansion capacity, user can create a separate storage pool and volume on the RAID expansion enclosure. 1. Login to the Turbo NAS with administrator privileges. 2. Go to Storage Manager > Storage Pool, and click New Storage Pool to open the storage creation window. Select the enclosure and hard drives to add to the new storage pool and select a proper RAID type. 3. Click Create, and a new storage pool will be created. Please note that the data on selected hard drives will be cleared.
Expand storage pool capacity online To expand the storage pool capacity, please refer to below: Create a new RAID group 1. Go to Storage Manager > Storage Pool and click Expand Pool to bring up the Storage Pool Expansion Wizard. 2. Select Create a new RAID group and click Next. 3. Select an enclosure and hard drives to be added to the RAID group and click Next.
4. Preview settings in the confirmation page and click Expand to finish. Create a new volume 1. Go to Storage Manager > Volume and click New Volume to bring up the Volume Creation Wizard.
2. Select Quick or Custom. In this example, we will use the newly created storage pool. So, select Custom and the name of the storage pool and click Next. 3. Specify the volume capacity and the rest of the options and click Next. 4. Review all settings in the confirmation page and click Next. 5. A new volume is created.
Expand volume capacity online 1. Go to Storage Manager > Volume and click Expand volume to bring up the Volume Resizing Wizard. 2. Specify the size of the new capacity. 3. Click Apply to expand the volume capacity.
Summary QNAP RAID expansion enclosures and flexible volume management provides a flexible, plug-and-use, and economic storage expansion solution for data-hungry businesses. This flexibility also means that businesses do not have to make large investments at initial setup, and can flexibly expand their storage capacity to meet future requirements and/or budget.. Providing a potential raw capacity of up to 400TB, QNAP RAID expansion enclosures also provide a great solution for storing big data.
Reference How to use QNAP Flexible Volume Management http://www.qnap.com/en/index.php?lang=en&sn=9384 RAID Expansion Enclosure Hardware Manual http://us1.qnap.com/storage/manual/raid_expansion_enclosure_hardware_manual_eng_2012070 5.pdf
Technical Support QNAP provides dedicated online support and customer service via instant messenger. Online Support: http://www.qnap.com MSN: q.support@hotmail.com Skype: qnapskype Forum: http://forum.qnap.com Technical Support in the U.S. and Canada: Email: q_supportus@qnap.com TEL: 909-595-2819 Address: 166 University Parkway Pomona, CA 91768-4300 Service Hours: 08:00-17:00 (GMT- 08:00 Pacific Time, Monday to Friday)